Chapter 1

I twisted the knob of the door that had been waiting twelve years for my hand. Looking down the hall to the kitchen, I could see a woman standing at the stove. The woman was my Mom, older, grayer and looking somewhat sad, not like she had been when I knew her before. Mom apparently felt or heard the door opening, although I had done it as quietly as I could. "Hi Mom, I'm home."

She turned to face me and with tears brimming in her eyes spoke slowly. "I'm glad you're home, Tony. It has been so long I thought you must be dead. Can you forgive me for what I did to you twelve years ago? I have suffered every day since."

"Where's Pat?"

"Gone. He left eleven months after he forced me to tell you to leave."

I felt I could come into this home now, with the reason I left not here anymore. I walked towards my mother and we clung to each other. She was sobbing softly, and I had tears in my eyes. Finally she led me to a chair and started making a pot of coffee. She had been making dried beef gravy for her evening meal, so she put in a couple more slices of toast to feed me. I watched her as she busied herself doing this. She stopped several times and just looked at me. It was as though she had to remember what I looked like at eighteen and fit it to the man I had become.

I looked at her too. She was still the tall, striking Irish woman that was my Mom. She sat opposite me drinking her coffee while I ate the food I hadn't had in years. It was as good as I remembered. I felt now I was truly welcome. "Mom, I only have an hour before I have to be back at the motel. I left my daughter alone and I promised I wouldn't be gone long."

"You have a daughter? That makes me a grandmother."

"Yes, her name is Seely. She just turned eight."

"Is she pretty? I'll bet she is if she looks like you did when you were that age. You were so cute."

"I may have been cute at eight, but look at me now. I can't even be considered handsome. I think Seely is beautiful though. Mom, tell me about you and Pat. I never met anyone I hated more than I did him. You say he left after a few months. What happened? Did you marry him? I know you were planning on it."

"No I didn't marry him, thank God. I think he was after the money that I received from your father's life insurance. He kept wanting to borrow money and said when we married it would be his anyway. He pushed me too hard and I began to have my doubts about him. I quietly went to Bill Grogan at the police department to see if he had a record. I wish I had done it before I made you leave. Pat was just no good and had done this to other women. By the time I found out, you had disappeared and I have been waiting all this time for you to come home."

"I'm sorry it didn't work out for you."

"He was a con man through and through. He was so charming and knew just how to push my buttons. I have to say, your father and I loved each other and we had a pretty good time in bed. Pat though, made a practice of seducing women and he made me reach places I didn't think it possible for a woman to reach." Mom was shaking her head at the memories. "I have to admit I miss that part of him and I'm not ashamed of it either." Again she was lost momentarily in reverie.

"What about you? Do you have a wife to go with the daughter you have?"

"I have one, but we have our problems. She isn't much of a mom either. She told me a week ago that if I didn't like her lifestyle to leave and take Seely with me. I don't think she thought I would, but I did and here I am."

"When can I meet Seely? Why don't you both stay here with me? A motel is no place for a child. How does Seely feel about being away from her Mom?"

"Seely is okay as long as I am near her or she knows where I am. Would you go with me when I pick her up? She is pretty excited to think she has a grandmother and wants to meet you. I've told her a lot about you--all the good things I remembered about growing up. I told her I ran away when I left home so don't say anything otherwise." This brought tears to Mom's eyes, because she had sent me away when I couldn't get along with Pat.

Mom got her sweater and while we were driving to get Seely, I reflected on my parents. We were a solid middle class family. Dad was a fireman and was killed when a forest fire overran his escape route. Mom was wild with grief for over a year and then Pat moved in with her.

He eased into her confidence and before I was aware, he had her totally in his control. I watched him and I suppose I resented him for I missed my father. Dad had been my friend and companion all through my youth. I felt a year was too short a time for Mom to replace him. This led to many heated arguments between us. Looking back now, I think this was all staged by Pat to isolate Mom from me. He was subtle and before I knew it Mom gave me an ultimatum to get along with Pat or leave. I left, and at eighteen I was on my own.

Mom asked, "What did you do when you left here?"

"I joined the Army. I signed up for the engineers. It was the smartest thing I ever did. Luckily there was no overseas duty and I was able to go to night school as I fulfilled my service duties. When I finished my enlistment, I had a skill and I had the education to move right into civilian life. I'll tell you how I met my wife and where I am with her now sometime when we have more time. I've been very careful not to disparage Seely's mother in front of her. I do not want to turn Seely against her mother."

I was afraid Mom would rush to Seely when they first met and demand a hug or kiss. She was too wise for that, as I soon saw. Mom kept her distance as I introduced Seely to her grandmother although Seely could see love shining in Mom's eyes. "Daddy says you were a wonderful mom to him. He must have made you awful unhappy when he ran away. I hope you forgive him."

"I forgave him as soon as he ran away. He likely felt he had reason to leave. I'm so glad he has finally come home and I'm glad he brought you with him."

"Can I call you Grandma?"

"You certainly can."

"Seely why don't you start packing. We are going to move into Grandma's house. You can sleep in the same bed I did when I was growing up. Grandma is a great cook. She will teach you how to cook just like she did me."

"My Mom said that I shouldn't have to learn to cook. That is what Mexicans do and we shouldn't take their jobs from them."

"I know Seely, but we don't have many Mexicans living here, so we cook for ourselves." I glanced at Mom, and she understood that my wife was used to hiring help to cook and probably do other chores as well.

Later that evening I tucked Seely into my childhood bed. As I kissed her goodnight, Seely asked me if it was all right to ask her new grandma for a kiss before she went to sleep. Rita Morales, our housekeeper, usually kissed my daughter goodnight because my wife, Pam, was often out at her various charities and clubs. Rita had slowly taken over a lot of the care of Seely. Pam withdrew from her motherhood duties as time went on.

"Of course you can ask her for anything you want. She will do anything for you. She is so happy that I came home and brought her a granddaughter."

When Mom came down after waiting by Seely's bedside for sleep to come to her granddaughter, she said, "Alright Tony, tell me about your wife? It doesn't sound like you are very happy in your marriage."

"Maybe not in most peoples eyes. The thing is, I love Pam--some. The biggest problem is she has too much money and too much time to spend it. Another thing, I think Pam loves me just as much as I love her. We are just from two totally different backgrounds. Me, I'm from the middle class and she is from the rich and famous. Things were going well for us until shortly after Seely's fourth birthday. Pam's grandmother died and left her a huge amount of money. About the same time I was away for several weeks working on an engineering project.

"When I returned, Pam confessed she had been unfaithful to me--no details. I couldn't stand for her to tell me the circumstances. She admitted that when I went away she probably would be unfaithful again with the same person. We compromised. I said that if she didn't humiliate me, and kept her indiscretions from reaching my eyes or ears, I would still stay with her. This was in consideration of Seely.

"This is the way things were until a few months ago. She wanted to go on a cruise with some friends. When she came back she had changed. She has even denied me sex sometimes and it has been one argument after another. A week ago she said she was going on another cruise. It would be to Greece this time and she would be gone three weeks. I asked her not to go, for Seely needs more of her attention. That didn't seem to register with her at all. Then I said she couldn't go. This is when she told me to leave if I wanted to and to take Seely with me.

"For some reason, you have been in my thoughts more and more as the years have gone by. I made a phone call to an engineering firm here in town and I was assured of a job if I cared to relocate. I was hired this morning. Pam doesn't know I have left her and I have called her father and mother to inform them that I couldn't be reached. I did say I would call Pam when she returned from Greece. This is where I stand now with my wife."

"Are you going to divorce her?"

"I don't know. First I have to find out what her problem is. I'm going to wait until I talk to her. In the meantime I'm going to try to forget that part of my life and pick up with you, just like things were before you met Pat. I think you will find Seely a joy to be around. She shows a lot of the same qualities as Pam. I just want to emphasize what the good qualities are."

Seely very seldom mentioned her mom in the next two weeks, but she did want to know if she could call Rita Morales. Rita was more of a mother to Seely than Pam had been recently. When they talked, Seely raved to Rita about the new grandmother she had. I even had a few words for Rita myself about the one thing we had in common, other than Seely. I often helped Rita evenings in studying for her citizenship.

I was enjoying my new job and found it suited me better than my previous one. Seely had about seven weeks until school started again in the fall. Hopefully things would be settled between Pam and me before she returned to school. Mom was doting on her grandchild. She was lavishing all the affection she could on Seely to make up to me for my years of absence. Eventually I determined that Pam should have returned from Greece by now.

I called the house. Rita said she was back in town, but not home this evening. I called my mother-in-law and got the same answer to my query. I phoned the next morning about eight and got a sleepy "hello."

"Pam, it's me."

"Tony?"

"Yeah."

"You aren't home and neither is Seely. Where are you?"

"You told me to leave and to take Seely with me--so I did. You might as well know, I quit my job and have moved out of town. I figured you weren't interested in me or your daughter anymore, so even with all of your money there was no point in staying with you longer. Besides that, Seely was picking up on too many of your bad habits. I want her to have my values, not yours."

There was silence on the line and then I heard a shuddering intake of breath. "God Tony, I don't know what to say. You are so right about so many things, but you don't know why. I'm in bad trouble and it is getting worse all the time. I should have talked to you when I came back from that first cruise, but I thought I had the problem solved. Now it is very much worse."

"Maybe you better tell me all about it as soon as possible. I'm still your husband and I still have a little love for you--just not as much as I did."

"You probably won't love me at all when I tell you what has happened to me and what I have been doing. I have to though, because it has become more than I can handle. Can you come home so I can talk to you?"

"No I can't. I have just started a new job and I can't leave. You will have to come here. Seely is here with me and is being well taken care of. You might show a little interest in her as well. You haven't even asked anything about her except to verify that she is gone."

"Give me your address, and I will come as soon as possible. I'm pretty sick, but I will be there as soon as I am able to travel."

"How sick are you?"

"I don't know for sure. I seem to have an awful cold that has hung on forever. It could be something even worse."

"This is something you may have picked up sexually?"

"Yes."

"Am I at risk?"

"I don't think so, but you better have some tests done. Now you know why I have been denying you sex these last few months."

"Is there anything I can do before you get here?"

"Just take care of Seely and yourself. I'll call you when I get into town, but it may be several days before you hear from me. Bye Tony, and I don't really blame you for moving out on me."

I called my mother-in-law and asked if she knew what was wrong with Pam. She didn't know. She said she was acting like she had the flu. I was really concerned. Did Pam have AIDS? How about me? Had I contracted it from her? I immediately called the clinic to get tested for STDs. I found that it would take several days to either confirm or deny if I had contracted anything.

Every morning when I woke, I lay in bed asking myself how I felt before getting up. I seemed to feel okay. This is the way I started every day, but the fear was always present. Three days later the reports started coming back from the clinic. They were all negative, which was a relief. When I was questioned about when I thought I might have been in contact with a carrier, I said it had been at least three months. The doctor said he was positive I was free of any diseases.

I called Pam that evening and told her I was confirmed clean. She was so relieved to hear that she hadn't transmitted. She informed me she was feeling much better herself and would be coming to talk to me within a week. I asked if she had any results back from the tests she had taken. She said she had some, but the one she was the most worried about would take a few weeks to be sure she was safe.

I still had not heard any "I'm sorrys." I didn't know what my wife had been up to for the last few months, but it must have been pretty bad to have caused her to not care about me and Seely like she had done. Knowing Pam, I felt most likely she wasn't totally to blame. I couldn't think of anything I had done to cause her to stray, to the point of wanting to rid herself of me anyway. I know I had condoned her infidelity for years, but she had been totally discreet and if she hadn't told me about it herself, I would never have known.

I had given Pam my cell number and one Thursday afternoon she rang me at work telling me she was in town and was staying in a motel. It was a coincidence because she had booked herself into the same one I had before I went to meet my mother. The coincidence--she was in the same room that I and Seely had booked. Before she hung up she said she had Rita with her.

Pam met me at the door when I went into the motel. Pam looked like she had been through hell. She was thinner than she was several weeks ago. Also the bloom was off of her. There was just no glow to her at all. Usually even when Pam was sick she kept herself made up. That was gone now. I walked into her with my arms out and gave her a hug. When I went to kiss her, she turned her face so my kiss landed on her cheek. And stiff--there was no relaxing her body.

"Hi Pam. It's been weeks."

"I know. Come in and we'll talk. I brought Rita with me. I've told her all about my troubles and she has helped me survive. We can talk in front of her or she can go for a coffee somewhere."

"Either way, I don't care." I went in and Rita stood and came across the room to me.

"It is so wonderful to see you, Mr. O'Rourk. How is Seely? Can I see her today?"